470 OOSMIG PHILOSOPHY. [pt. hi. 



used in Mr. Spencer's philosophy, — nay, without even a sus- 

 picion that the symbol may have a precise value in some 

 measure purified from such connotations. At this stage of 

 our exposition, it is enough to suggest the fallaciousness of 

 such argumentation, without characterizing it in detail. It 

 is enough to remiud the reader that Deity is unknowable just 

 in so far as it is not manifested to consciousness through the 

 phenomenal world, — knowable just in so far as it is thus 

 manifested ; unknowable in so far as infinite and absolute, — 

 knowable in the order of its phenomenal manifestations ; 

 knowable, in a symbolic way, as the Power which is disclosed 

 in every throb of the mighty rhythmic life of the universe ; 

 knowable as the eternal Source of a Moral Law which is 

 implicated with each action of our lives, and in obedience 

 to which lies our only guaranty of the happiness which is 

 incorruptible, and which neither inevitable misfortune nor 

 unmerited obloquy can take away. Thus, though we may 

 not by searching find out God, though we may not compass 

 infinitude or attain to absolute knowledge, we may at least 

 know all that it concerns us to know, as intelligent and 

 responsible beings.^ They w^ho seek to know more than this, 

 to transcend the con-iitions under which alone is knowledge 

 possible, are, in Goethe's profound language, as wise as little 

 children who, when they have looked into a mirror, turn it 

 around to see what is behind it. 



To the other objection above hinted at it may be replied 

 that undoubtedly the conception of sin here developed is too 

 abstract to awaken the needful feelings in any save those 

 who have obtained, either through their own inquiries or by 

 the aid of instruction from others, a firm grasp of some 

 philosophic theory of the universe like the one crudely 

 sketched in the present work. For the larger part of the 

 world to-day the anthropomorphic doctrine of sin is un- 

 questionably the better one, — and it is the doctrine held by 



^ See above, vol. i. pp. 96, 96. 



